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Bali Beautiful Bali, Bali, Indonesia

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October 13, 2013

You know a place is great when you struggle whether to share it with others or to keep it to yourself– like a hidden treasure…

Our hotel was nestled in the middle of rolling lush green fields of
flowing rice. Who knew rice was such a beautiful plant. The landscape
was dotted by groupings of triangular shaped geometric hats worn by the
local farmers. Men, women, children and elderly worked side by side. I
sat many days outside our villa watching them and fantasizing about
their lives. Living in the nearby village and waking to this lively
field of nature, watching it grow day by day-spending their days tending
to the land while literally and figuratively, enjoying the fruits of
their labor. The village days were divided into three parts. Everyday
6:00am, 12:00noon and 6:00pm religious chanting and music filled the air
throughout all of Bali from all the nearby temples. It was as though a
soft silk spiritual cloth was draped over everything and everyone
everyday reminding them regularly of this overall life’s purpose. The
sun set over the fields at night glowing a kiss goodnight as the silver
cool moon watched over until the great mother returned for another
glorious day. How could this simple life seem so simply perfect? I
found myself reflecting back to Los Angles and the fields of skyscrapers
and the “busy”ness of business of everything and everyone… What is the
point?!?!! Was I just loosing it sitting day after day surrounded by
this simple existence that I had forgotten about what was really
important in life? Or had I just had my veil lifted from that which has
seemed to blind me for so long?

On one of many of our walks through the village to the beach -Ella
found a stray kitten living under a pile of washed up sticks on the
beach. Jason’s eyes filled with terror as he knew he held no power over
three girls and a stray kitten. We were all entranced by this little
guy and the girls named him “Tiger”. This entrancement lasted for about
one week.. but after cleaning up one too many “kitten accidents”… We
agreed we needed to find a better solution. One of the first sentences
Jason learned to say in Indonesian language was “goodbye kitty”. : )

This was when we were introduced to Linda. As amazing as we found
Bali to be, we found Linda and her husband to be!! They opened their
home to rescuing animals and lived just on the other side of the rice
field from us. Linda was Balinese and her husband was Dutch. They had
started an after school program for the local village children and
funded a Bali orphanage. Linda has been known to rescue all kinds of
animals including monkeys, snakes, dogs, kittens and even camels once.
And now she was going to give Tiger his new home… We all loved
her–especially Jason : )

Her stories amazed all of us… She told us how she once nursed a
kitten back to life with the help a nursing dog– she showed us video of
the kitten nursing alongside the other puppies! She had stories of
finding a rare lizard with a tail as long as a snake…But most exciting
for the girls was her work with saving baby sea turtles. Her home was
alongside the beach where she was able to work closely with helping to
save the Bali sea turtles. We were fortunate enough to be visiting
during a time when they were releasing the baby turtles back into the
sea. The girls were each allowed to name and help a baby turtle find
it’s way into the great blue Bali sea for the first time, only to return
one day to the same beach to lay their eggs. It was an incredible
experience!! We visited Linda many times and the girls were even able
to watch some eggs hatch. As for Tiger– our fearless kitten –he had
become friends Baby La La– the baby monkey. Only in Bali! We think
baby La La was more fond of Tiger but they seemed to have a pretty good
agreement– baby La La would eat all of Tiger’s fleas and keep him clean
as long as Tiger allowed her to treat him like her own personal stuffed
animal. It was pretty amazing to watch their relationship grow while
our love of Bali continued to grow more and more each day.